Abstract:
Night vision technology could become extremely precise thanks to an inexpensive water-based material capable of boosting particles of light in the infrared spectrum, say University of Toronto researchers. The material has the potential to enhance infrared images tenfold by coating lenses with a film a 10th of a millimetre thick and powering the material with a laser.

In a study published the January issue of the journal Optics Letters, U of T professors Ted Sargent and Eugenia Kumacheva and colleagues produced optical gain - boosting the power in a beam of light the way a stereo boosts electrical signals - using nanometre-sized particles originally suspended in water.